


Want and Need

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-26
Updated: 2008-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-22 22:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12491856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: He showed her the whole of time and space, lifted her up above the ordinary and mundane...but he also broke her heart by not saying the words that she needed to hear above all others, by leaving her behind. Now as a human, the Doctor has a second chance to make things right – but when you give so much of yourself to one person what’s to stop you from letting your own desires fall by the wayside?





	Want and Need

“Does it need saying?”

The look on her face was answer enough. It would never be enough for Rose to simply know how he felt about her. He knew (both versions of him actually) that she needed to hear the words. How else could she ever be certain of him? For that matter, how else could he ever be certain of himself?

Yes, they both knew she needed to hear it – but only one of them had the courage to actually say it.

“Rose Tyler – I love you.”

And then she had kissed him, all of her love and longing and the years of loneliness captured in one frantic moment of lips and arms and loss.

He stepped forward to take her hand after the TARDIS had dematerialised for the last time and when they looked at each other they had shared a brief moment that didn’t need words.

Which is why he was so surprised when she pulled away from him, taking her hand out of his and letting it fall by her side.

She wouldn’t touch him after that – not for the longest time.

“I need some space,” she apologised again and again as she dodged his embrace, his lips, stoically ignored his desperately outstretched hand. “Just for now. I need to wrap my head around this – you, me. Us.”

_Need. I need to know that you love me – I need some space away from you._

But that’s fine. That’s fine. Isn’t it? He would do anything for her. He’d broken her heart (well, the Time Lord version of him had broken her heart but...semantics! Details! They were the same man weren’t they?) What else could he do now but try to make up for past transgressions? What else could he want but to heal her in whatever way he could? And if that meant waiting and letting his desire to be with her go unfulfilled...

Well. Then so be it.

“You know how much I wanna love you,” mascara smudged with salt as she choked and sobbed against him. “But when I look at you I just keep on thinking of _him_ and it makes everything so _hard_...”

_Want – I want to love you._

She wants to love him and she’s trying to love him even though she can’t right now but she still wants to and that’s a good thing isn’t it? Isn’t it?

His feelings never fade, never waver, only grow stronger. She wants to love him but he _needs_ to love her, to be loved by her. ( _It’s not enough to be in love with you – I wanna be loved too._ )

He craves her like an addiction, deep and crawling beneath his too-warm human skin. He aches. He shivers. He feels the slow pass of their life together ticking away, tocking away. His heart, his single human heart burns with want.

She needs time and she needs space. Not the kind that they used to dance through as simple as flicking a few buttons – she needs the type that as a human man he can still give her. He can never give her the stars again but he can surely give her this?

He can wait for her the way she waited for him because she knows that he loves her now. She knows that he’ll be waiting for her when she’s ready. It is, after all, the least he can do.

He can wait. He _can_.

“Please...please Doctor,” she’s desperate and needy and wanting all at once and he is utterly overwhelmed by her and what she is asking of him. “I _need_ you.”

When she finally reaches out to him he’s all too willing to oblige her. She’s never before voiced a need for a physical connection with him. Well...at least not like this. This is raw emotion, a tangible, oh-so-human mess. He’s never seen Rose like this, not in any of his lifetimes. She’s almost wild, desperate as she tears at his zipper, as she presses her body flush up against his, blonde hair loose and falling to shadow her face.

He desperately wants to reach out, bridge the gap between them and finally touch her. He wants to roll her over onto her back and make love to her in earnest. He wants...he wants _her_.

But when she whimpers above him, so deep inside her own head, inside her own pleasure that she’s completely lost...

He understands why she’s come to him like this, why she’s taken control. She needs this to be on her terms and he understands that. His wants and desires can wait a little longer. He can wait. He has to wait. He doesn’t have the courage or the heart to deny her this, to deny her anything.

“ _I love you_.”

He’s waited so long now for her to say it – to say it to _him_ – that it’s nothing short of anti-climactic. He’s almost disappointed. After all, he already knows that she loves him or rather that she loved him once before. He always knew that eventually she would learn to love him again, to love him as this new-new human Doctor – it was always just a question of when.

And now he thinks he can finally tell her what he wants.

“I know,” he murmurs in reply and sighs contentedly, long and low into her hair. His touch feels clammy against her bare skin. New-new body temperature for this new-new human Doctor and his new-new relationship with... “Rose?”

“Yeah?”

His tongue swells thickly around the words ( _I need you – I want you_ ) and she waits and watches him with eyes that shine gold with a hint of trepidation.

Despite everything, she’s still uncertain of him.

( _There was lots of times when we were travelling together that I thought maybe...but then something’d happen and it’d be like Sarah Jane all over again only worse cos straight after you’d do something to make me feel like...like maybe we had something special after all and I’d start loving you all over again like the idiot kid that I was..._ )

He can’t blame her – not after everything he’s put her through. He stops himself. He stops himself from telling her what he’s been bursting to for the past months, weeks and instead he blurts out something she already knows, something that shouldn’t need saying anymore because he already has and she _knows_ she knows she knows.

Doesn’t see?

“I love you too.”

The apprehension in her eyes melts away as if it was never there and Rose chuckles softly as she snugs her body up against his, fingertips curling against his skin. “I _know_ you love me you daft man.”

 _Do you?_ , he thinks desperately. _Do you know how much I need you? How terrified I am that you really don’t know just how much I..._

“Night,” she mumbles sleepily and within minutes she’s asleep in his arms and he’s more awake than he’s ever been in his life.

His fingertips tremble against her cheekbone as she sleeps on, sound and safe in his arms.

“I need you,” he breathes. “I love you.”

But she doesn’t hear him.


End file.
